Climate Researcher Database

With over 500 faculty members investigating climate-related topics 
across two UBC campuses, it can be hard to know where to start. 

This page provides a searchable list of UBC faculty members conducting climate and climate-related research across the university. 

The database allows you to filter by campus, faculty or school, and research theme, or you can search by keywords.

If you are you a UBC research associate or faculty member who wish to be added to the tool, or to adjust an existing entry, please complete this Qualtrics survey or email us at climate.collective@ubc.ca.

Would you like to partner with UBC researchers?  You can connect with Innovation + Partnerships for support in Vancouver and the Okanagan.

For support with media enquiries, please reach out to UBC Media Relations in Vancouver or UBC University Relations in Kelowna. 

You can also contact us at climate.collective@ubc.ca 

Name Campus Research Interests Faculty Department, School, Affiliations Research Theme(s)
Michael Hooper UBC Vancouver Comparative politics; Climate migration; Densification; Disasters and natural hazards; Displacement; Participatory planning; Urban planning and policy; Urban spatial transformation: Displacement, disasters and densification. Faculty of Applied Science School of Community and Regional Planning; Centre for Migration Studies; Disaster Resilience Research Network Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change, Natural Hazards and Disaster Response, Urban Planning and Cities, Policy and Governance, Housing
Kristen Hopewell UBC Vancouver International trade; Global governance; Industrial policy and development; Emerging powers; Global powers; WTO; International political economy. Faculty of Arts School of Public Policy and Global Affairs Policy and Governance, International Negotiations and Treaties, Agriculture, Poverty, Climate Finance and Investment
Ed Hornibrook UBC Okanagan Biogeochemistry; Stable isotopes; Biosphere-atmosphere exchange of greenhouse gases; Natural and restored wetlands; Lakes; Soil; Groundwater; Trace gas analysis; Automation of monitoring equipment. Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences Atmospheric Science, Carbon Cycle, Freshwater Systems, Forestry
Kurt Hübner UBC Vancouver Sustainability and innovation policies; Politics and economics of European integration as well as on contradictions and complementarities of sustainability and international competitiveness. Faculty of Arts Department of Political Science International Negotiations and Treaties, Policy and Governance, Economic Modeling and Data Analysis
Emily Huddart Kennedy UBC Vancouver Human-environmental relationships; What motivates civic engagement in efforts to protect the environment?; How do pro-environmental practices reflect and reproduce social differences?; Household-level sustainable consumption; Alternative food initiatives; Gender, politics and social class in Environmentalism. Faculty of Arts Department of Sociology; Centre for Climate Justice; Centre for Sustainable Food Systems Environmental Psychology, Policy and Governance, Clean Energy and Energy Transitions, Climate Activism and Social Movements
Zachary Hudson UBC Vancouver Development of new materials to address issues of sustainability in chemistry and materials science; Synthesis of organic and organometallic materials directed towards applications in sensing, printed electronics, and efficient solid-state lighting. Faculty of Science Department of Chemistry; Bioproducts Institute; Hudson Research Group Sustainable Materials and Composites
Brian Hunt UBC Vancouver Biological oceanography; Structure and function of pelagic marine ecosystems and their response to climate forcing and anthropogenic impacts; Plankton dynamics; Response of lower trophic levels to bottom-up forcing by climatic and oceanographic conditions, and the implications of this response for mid-trophic levels; Antarctic; Tropical South Pacific; New Zealand; Mediterranean; North Pacific and Arctic. Faculty of Science Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries; Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences; Pelagic Ecosystems Laboratory; Biodiversity Research Centre Oceans and Coastal Systems, Fisheries, Alpine, Arctic and Antarctic
Dallas Hunt UBC Vancouver Indigenous-led climate action and planning; Climate justice; Indigenous literatures; Indigenous theory & politics; Canadian literature; Speculative fiction; Settler colonial studies; Environmental justice. Faculty of Arts Department of English Language and Literatures; Centre for Climate Justice Climate Justice, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change
Kshamta Hunter UBC Vancouver Climate education; Sustainability curriculum and pedagogy; Sustainable development goals; Transformative learning. Faculty of Education Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy Climate Activism and Social Movements, Climate Justice, Climate Education and Environmental Literacy, Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change
Alessandro Ielpi UBC Okanagan Earth and planetary geomorphology; Watersheds, rivers, and floodplains; Basin analysis; Fluvial biogeochemistry. Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences Freshwater Systems, Paleoclimate, Terrestrial Ecosystems
John Innes UBC Vancouver Plants and forests; Climate changes and Impacts; Forest management; Communities and Indigenous knowledge; Sustainable forest management. Faculty of Forestry Department of Forest Resource Management; Sustainable Forest Management Group; Forest Carbon Research Lab Forestry, Natural Resource Management, Indigenous Relationships and Reconciliation, Business Processes and Corporate Governance
Darren Irwin UBC Vancouver How new species arise, how geographical variation within species is produced, and how behaviors evolve; Hybrid zones and their role in speciation; Genomic “islands of differentiation”; Cytonuclear discordance; Ring species; Migratory behaviour; Cryptic species. Faculty of Science Department of Zoology; Irwin Lab; Biodiversity Research Centre Biodiversity, Terrestrial Ecosystems
Tara Ivanochko UBC Vancouver Embedding open source computational tools into earth science courses; Climate studies and action certificate; Community engaged experiential learning; Educational portfolios; Advancing sustainability education in EOAS, Faculty of Science and UBC. Faculty of Science Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences; Sustainability Hub; Centre for Sustainable Food Systems Climate Education and Environmental Literacy
Sara Jacobs UBC Vancouver Reinterpreting landscape through histories of environment, care; Infrastructures of race and coloniality; Politics and possibilities of care; Histories of racialization within landscape practice; Environmental histories of soil, contamination, and carceral labour; Climate crisis at the overlaps of water, land, and collective memory. Faculty of Applied Science School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change, Urban Planning and Cities
Kedrick James UBC Vancouver Adolescent literacy; Arts based education; Canadian poetry and poetics; Critical literacies & critical pedagogies; Data visualization and sonification; Digital literacy; Digital research methods; Discourse analysis; Eco-poetics, Environmental literacy; Language and literacy teacher education; Language assessment; Literary studies; Multimodality; Online learning; Orality and literacy; Poetic inquiry; Remix; Research methodologies; Technology & language education. Faculty of Education Department of Language and Literacy Education; Research-Based Theatre Collaborative Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change, Climate Education and Environmental Literacy
Jill Jankowski UBC Vancouver The study of patterns of species diversity and distributions in heterogeneous landscapes, and how those patterns are influenced by physiological, ecological and evolutionary forces. Faculty of Science Department of Zoology; Biodiversity Research Centre; Jankowski Lab Biodiversity, Terrestrial Ecosystems, Alpine, Arctic and Antarctic
John Janmaat UBC Okanagan Environmental and resource economics, with an emphasis on the role of environmental services; Knowledge mobilization and sustainability policy; Environmental economics; Natural resource economics. Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Department of Economics, Philosophy and Political Science; Future Waters Group; Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity, Resilience, And Ecosystems Services (BRAES); Cluster of Research Excellence in Living with Wildfire in the BC Southern Interior Economic Modeling and Data Analysis, Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, Policy and Governance, Livelihoods and Traditional Economies, Land Use
Juri Jatskevich UBC Vancouver Power and energy systems; Smart energy grids; Power electronic systems and converter circuits; Electrical machines and drives; Controls; Electromagnetic transients; Computer modeling and simulation; Distributed and parallel simulation. Faculty of Applied Science Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems; Marine Systems Research Cluster; Power Group; Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) Electricity, Clean Energy and Energy Transitions
Mark Jellinek UBC Vancouver Climate change's effects on plate tectonics; Undersea eruptions and black smoker vents influence on the chemistry and biodiversity of the deep ocean; Climatic footprint of a super continental cycle; How the formation and destruction of supercontinents influence the evolution of Earth's atmosphere, ocean and biosphere; Volcanic eruptions driving climate variability; Climate variability's effect on volcanic eruptions. Faculty of Science Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences Atmospheric Science, Oceans and Coastal Systems, Climate Risk Management, Alpine, Arctic and Antarctic, Natural Hazards and Disaster Response
Reinhard Jetter UBC Vancouver Molecular biology; Genes and enzymes; The cuticle: Waxy "skin" covering plant surfaces foring the interface between plants and their environment, the study of which will help better protect crop plants against adverse conditions such as drought, engineer novel chemical structures that are analogous to those on plant leaves to improve the surface properties of artificial materials (e.g., plant-like wax coatings can protect building materials against adverse climatic conditions). Faculty of Science Department of Botany; Department of Chemistry; Jetter Lab Biodiversity, Agriculture, Sustainable Materials and Composites
Feng Jiang UBC Vancouver Green approaches in nanocellulose isolation, characterization, and modification; Energy storage applications of bio-based nanomaterials; Bio-based nanomaterials isolation. Faculty of Forestry Department of Wood Science; Bioproducts Institute; Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC); Sustainable Functional Biomaterials Lab Biofuels and Biomass, Forestry, Sustainable Materials and Composites
Zhichun Jing UBC Vancouver Archaeology of Shang civilization; Early urbanism; Culture contact; Environmental archaeology; Archaeology of collapse and sustainability; Archaic jades; Archaeological ceramics. Faculty of Arts Department of Anthropology Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change, Urban Planning and Cities
Mark Johnson UBC Vancouver Hydrological cycle and reservoirs; Land and soil; Climate changes and impacts; Agriculture; Ecology and quality of the environment; Running water hydrosystem; Fresh water; Ground water and water tables; Ecohydrology; Carbon cycle; Land use; Water and sustainability; Biogeochemistry; Data science. Faculty of Science Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences; Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability; Centre for Sustainable Food Systems; Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC); Diversified Agroecosystem Cluster Freshwater Systems, Water Resources and Supply, Carbon Cycle, Agriculture, Natural Resource Management
Melanie Jones UBC Okanagan Physiology of ectomycorrhizas and roots of woody plants; Effects of fire and silviculture on ectomycorrhizal fungal communities; Carbon allocation within and between woody plants; Orchard management under climate change. Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science Department of Biology; Jones Research Lab; Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity, Resilience, And Ecosystems Services (BRAES) Forestry, Biodiversity, Carbon Management, Carbon Cycle, Agriculture, Wildfires and Forest Fires
Lee Jongho UBC Vancouver Environmental engineering; Environmental systems engineering; Water/wastewater treatment, Desalination; Resource harvesting; Nanoporous media; Electrokinetics. Faculty of Applied Science Department of Civil Engineering; Lee Research Group; Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) Water Resources and Supply, Waste and Waste Management, Sustainable Materials and Composites, Clean Energy and Energy Transitions
Andrew Jorgensen UBC Vancouver Human dimensions of global and regional environmental change, with a focus on the societal causes and consequences of the climate crisis; Political economy of development, inequality, and population health disparities. Faculty of Arts Department of Sociology; Climate & Society Lab; Centre for Climate Justice Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change, Climate Justice, Health and Wellbeing, Poverty, Pollution
Eduardo Jovel UBC Vancouver Indigenous plant knowledge; Mycology; Natural product chemistry; Aboriginal health; Organismal and chemical diversity and their intersection with human and environmental health; Indigenous peoples’ worldviews and their use of ecosystem resources to maintain health and wellness, particularly plants uses; Indigenous medicinal systems; Food security; Environmental health; Research ethics; Gender relations; Indigenous research methods. Faculty of Land and Food Systems Indigenous Research Partnerships (Centre for Indigenous Land-Based Education, Research and Wellness); Diversified Agroecosystem Cluster; Aboriginal Research Lab; Applied Biology Program; Centre for Sustainable Food Systems Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Sovereign or Sustainable Food Systems, Agriculture, Health and Wellbeing, Terrestrial Ecosystems, Indigenous Ways of Knowing
Vinay Kamat UBC Vancouver Global health and emerging diseases; Marine conservation; Extractive industry; Political ecology; Indian primary health care, the resurgence of urban malaria, and the political economy of the outsourcing of pharmaceutical clinical trials; Tanzanian ethnographic research on the everyday lived experience of marginalized people caught in rapid social transformation engendered through neoliberal economic reforms. Faculty of Arts Department of Anthropology Health and Wellbeing, Natural Resource Management, Poverty, Policy and Governance, Weather and Climate Extremes, Oil and Gas
Milind Kandlikar UBC Vancouver Focus on the intersection of technology innovation, human development and the global environment; Cross-national comparisons of regulation of agricultural biotechnology; Air pollution and air quality in Indian cities; Risks and benefits of nanotechnology; New technologies for sustainable transportation; Development and climate change; Human development and global environment. Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science School of Public Policy and Global Affairs; Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability; Liu Institute for Global Issues; Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) Pollution, Policy and Governance, Agriculture, Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change, Bioprocesses and Biotechnology
Denise Kenney UBC Okanagan Devised theatre; Physical theatre; Art and social practice; Eco-art; Performance art; Interventionist performance; Experimental and documentary digital media. Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Department of Creative Studies; Centre for Culture and Technology Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change
Paul Kershaw UBC Vancouver Generational fairness, particularly focusing on the impact of housing and taxation policies on different age groups; Policies that address the financial challenges faced by younger Canadians, emphasizing the need for intergenerational solidarity and a more equitable approach to housing and taxation. Faculty of Medicine School of Population and Public Health; Balanced Supply of Housing Research Cluster Health and Wellbeing, Climate Activism and Social Movements, Housing, Pollution, Policy and Governance
Park Keunhyun UBC Vancouver Using drones, sensors, and VR to understand how people use urban areas like parks and streets, aiming to improve design decisions; Sustainable communities: Compact, mixed-use communities to address issues like poor health and environmental damage caused by urban sprawl, focusing on how design affects people's lives; Green access for all: Equal access to urban nature, particularly for different socio-economic groups, with tools and policies for fair access to parks and green spaces. Faculty of Forestry Department of Forest Resource Management; Urban Forests Research Hub; UNDER (Urban Nature DEsign Research) Lab Urban Planning and Cities, Forestry, Climate Justice, Transportation, Health and Wellbeing
Samia Khan UBC Vancouver Science education; Pedagogy; How people learn (k-16); Teacher education; Educational technology; Visualization; Classroom integration. Faculty of Education Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy; Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability Climate Education and Environmental Literacy
Tarun Khanna UBC Vancouver Economics of the decarbonization of the energy sector and the policies that are needed to get there; Evidence synthesis; Policy evaluation; Electricity markets and energy in development. Faculty of Arts School of Public Policy and Global Affairs; Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability; Decision Insights for Business & Society (DIBS) Electricity, Carbon Management, Policy and Governance, Agriculture, Economic Modeling and Data Analysis
Sina Kheirkhah UBC Okanagan Combustion; Turbulence; Laser-based diagnostics; Low/zero carbon fuels; Sprays; Gas turbine engines. Faculty of Applied Science School of Engineering (Mechanical); UBC Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) Clean Energy and Energy Transitions, Transportation, Carbon Management
Alyse Kiesser UBC Okanagan Systems ecology; Big data science; Microbial metabolic interactions; Natural and engineered microbial ecosystem; Multi-omics (DNA, RNA and protein sequencing). Faculty of Applied Science School of Engineering (Civil) Water Resources and Supply, Bioprocesses and Biotechnology, Oceans and Coastal Systems, Carbon Cycle
Amy Kim UBC Vancouver Transportation systems analysis; Multimodal networks; Transportation infrastructure planning; Adaptation; Long-distance transportation; Air transportation; Resource allocation and optimization; Multicriteria analysis and decision-making; Supply-and-demand models. Faculty of Applied Science Department of Civil Engineering; Disaster Resilience Research Network Transportation, Urban Planning and Cities, Wildfires and Forest Fires, Natural Hazards and Disaster Response
Kayla King UBC Vancouver Virulence evolution; Biodiversity loss and global climate change; Zoonoses and emerging infectious diseases; Protective microbiome; Social interactions; Sexual reproduction. Faculty of Science Department of Zoology Biodiversity, Terrestrial Ecosystems, Health and Wellbeing
Patrick Kirchen UBC Vancouver Thermochemical energy conversion; Understanding the impacts of engine operating parameters such as fuel type, injection strategies, and charge preparation on the fundamental combustion and emission formation processes. Faculty of Applied Science Department of Mechanical Engineering; Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) Transportation, Hydrogen
Bern Klein UBC Vancouver Technology and innovation for improved energy efficiency and reduced environmental footprint in mining; Geometallurgy; Energy-efficient comminution technologies. Faculty of Applied Science Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering Mining
Naomi Klein UBC Vancouver Gender, race, class; Power, colonialism, justice; Climate emergency as a catalyst for bold, justice-based transformation in our bio-region and beyond, with particular attention to the intersections between climate justice and Indigenous land rights; Gendered and racialized labour of care; Rights of migrants. Faculty of Arts Department of Geography; Centre for Climate Justice; Disaster Resilience Research Network Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change, Climate Justice, Policy and Governance, Climate Activism and Social Movements, Natural Hazards and Disaster Response, Indigenous Relationships and Reconciliation
Peter Klein UBC Vancouver Global journalism; Under-covered issues around the world; Producing; Investigative reporting; Health; Corruption and national security; Documentaries. Faculty of Applied Science School of Journalism, Writing, and Media; Coordinated Arts Program; Centre for Migration Studies Social Dimensions of Climate and Systems Change, Climate Education and Environmental Literacy
Brian Klinkenberg UBC Vancouver Endangered species (plants); Conservation biology; Health geography; Uncertainty; Advanced spatial analysis in the physical, health and social sciences; Medical biogeography; Geographic Information Science; Landscape classification; Biogeography; Environmental geography; Human-ecosystem interactions and conservation biology; Biodiversity informatics. Faculty of Arts Department of Geography Health and Wellbeing, Climate Modelling and Data Analysis, Biodiversity, Land Use
Thorsten Knipfer UBC Vancouver Drought stress responses of woody perennial crops at micro- and macroscopy level using a combination of cutting-edge and traditional research tools; Spatiotemporal coupling of organ and cell specific processes that govern whole-plant performance under water stress by drought and following soil rehydration. Faculty of Land and Food Systems Plant-Water Relations Lab; Applied Biology Program Agriculture, Water Resources and Supply, Weather and Climate Extremes
Michael Kobor UBC Vancouver Environmental and biological factors that affect genome function and gene expression; DNA packaging; Molecular machinery of the DNA packaging process as it relates to fetal alcohol syndrome, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Effects of socio-economic status on gene expression. Faculty of Medicine Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Aging; Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics; Social Exposome Cluster Health and Wellbeing
Michael Koehle UBC Vancouver The interaction between exercise and environmental pollution; Health interventions; Health promotion; High performance sport; Physiology; Systems biology. Faculty of Education School of Kinesiology; Air Pollution Exposure Laboratory (APEL) Health and Wellbeing, Pollution
Hoi Kong UBC Vancouver Constitutional law; Administrative law; Municipal and comparative law; Constitutional and public law theory; Administrative law and regulatory governance; Comparative law; Environmental law, natural resources, and climate change; Jurisprudence, legal theory, and critical studies; Public and constitutional law. Peter A. Allard School of Law Centre for Asian Legal Studies Environmental Law, Policy and Governance
Michele Koppes UBC Vancouver Glaciers, mountains, and the people who dwell within them's response to ongoing climate change; Landscape and hazards responses to changing ice dynamics; Effects of climate change on meltwater resources and on mountain cultures; Lived experiences of people living with the cascading effects of climate change in glacial regions. Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability; Department of Geography Alpine, Arctic and Antarctic, Climate Risk Management, Freshwater Systems, Indigenous Relationships and Reconciliation, Rural and Northern Communities
Robert Kozak UBC Vancouver Sustainable business management practices; Issues and providing solutions to complex problems related to sustainable development, forestry, wood products and the emerging conservation economy. Faculty of Forestry Department of Wood Science; FACT | Forests and Communities in Transition Lab Business Processes and Corporate Governance, Forestry, Poverty, Policy and Governance, Livelihoods and Traditional Economies, Climate Justice
Charles J. Krebs UBC Vancouver Ecology of smaller mammals, including deer mice, voles, and other related species; Population fluctuations of voles and lemmings. Faculty of Science Department of Zoology; Biodiversity Research Centre Terrestrial Ecosystems, Biodiversity, Alpine, Arctic and Antarctic

First Nations land acknowledegement

We acknowledge that UBC’s campuses are situated within the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, and in the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples.

Climate Solutions Research Collective

UBC receives support for managing its research enterprise from the federal Research Support Fund.

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